A boy in Rio de Janeiro is more likely to die violently than is a child in most war zones. In Medellín, young women lament that all of the men who might have been their husbands are dead. Fueled by the drug trade, poverty, and urbanization, Latin American cities have suffered an unprecedented wave of urban violence in the last decade, and police forces around the region have been unable to offer a solution.

Fortunately, some small community organizations have been able to stem this tide of violence, and over the course of several years, Shine a Light is documenting some of the most powerful models for violence prevention. In 2004, we worked with the Brazilian NGO Instituto Promundo to show how developing and strengthening the social fabric in poor neighborhoods can act as a control on gang violence. This year, SAL collaborated with the Centro de Mediación y Resolución de Conflictos, an organization that has had tremendous success in reducing murders in Medellín, once the world’s most violent city. Only a few years ago, as many as 40 people were murdered each week in Moravia, but the Centro has helped transform this small neighborhood into a flourishing cultural and business hub of the city, where violent death is now unusual.

We worked closely with mediators and community activists in Moravia to learn how they succeed so dramatically, and made some of our best documentaries yet. This DVD based course, when released in 2007, promises to transform the way that cities think about urban violence and peacemaking.

Texts available on line from this project:

Films available from the project (Rio de Janeiro)

• Even they want alternatives: Strategies against Drug Gangs (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)
• "I never want to leave": The favela of Santa Marta in the eyes of its teenagers. (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)
• How to do research in the favela. (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)
• Dreaming together, we make it real: (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)
• The Community United: organizing the favela of Santa Marta (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)
• Exchanging information: training leaders in Bangu (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)
• Violence in Rio de Janeiro (Promundo and Shine a Light, Portuguese, 2004)

Films available from the project (Medellín)

Bullets and Vallenatos: Culture as Mediator in Medellín (Shine a Light and CMC, 2005, Spanish)
La Bombonera: Football and Peace in Moravia (Shine a Light and CMC, 2005, Spanish)
Community Resataurants, Community Peacemaking.(Shine a Light and CMC, 2005, Spanish)
The Business of Peace.(Shine a Light and CMC, 2005, Spanish)
Sports and Peace (Shine a Light and CMC, 2005, Spanish)